What Does Jeremiah 1:4 Mean?
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “word” can also mean a matter or event, so the LORD’s address arrives with substance, not as bare information.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s address reaches you as speech that bears substance: it comes, then it speaks. The Hebrew noun can mean both a word and a matter, so this address is more than detached information.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a word from God is only an idea detached from reality: in Hebrew, the word also names a matter.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
devar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak or utter; the related noun can mean a word, matter, or affair.
The word that comes to you is also a “matter”, speech with substance. English “word” can sound like information alone, while Hebrew holds utterance and matter within the same root-family.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word; matter; thing; affair
דָּבָר
This noun names both an utterance and a matter, showing the substance carried by “the word of the LORD.”
dibbēr: To speak; to say
דִּבֵּר
The related verb makes the word’s movement audible: it arrives, then speaks.
THE PATTERN
God’s word is living address with substance and effect.
He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.In the beginning was the word, and the word was turned toward God, and the word was God.For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.Jeremiah’s phrase uses דְּבַר־יְהוָה, and Psalm 33:6 uses the same דָּבָר root-family in “by the word of the LORD.” The shared root opens the address as speech with creative force, not merely information.
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